What causes Parkinson’s disease?

We have heard much about Parkinson’s disease and have understood how the great boxer Mohammed Ali and Pope John Paul II fought their battles against the disease, which is the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer’s. To have more understanding on the disease, let us look into what leads to this disease. Our muscle movements are coordinated and carried out effectively with the help of a chemical messenger called dopamine. Parkinson’s disease leads to the degeneration of small clusters of cells in the midbrain, which in turn results in the disappearance of dopamine and thus it affects the muscle movements first. ``The disease affects older people, but sometimes it is seen among people below 50 years too,’’ says Asok Sharma, a medical student. ``If identified during the early stages of the disease, it is comparatively easy to cure,’’ he says. There are extensive researches conducted on the disease and the researchers strive to find out the reason behind its occurrence. Some researchers say that if the disease appears in a person before 50 years of age, the reason can be attributed to genetics, but if the disease affects them at a later stage of life, some environmental factors and contaminants may be responsible for it. Apart from the mainstream healthcare sector, allopathy, there are alternative systems which provide treatment to this disease and parkinson's ayurvedic treatmentis one among them.